Digital communications were critical to business survival in 2020, and digital solutions built by companies will shape their business success in the post-pandemic economy.
This was the core finding from cloud platform provider Twilio, in the release of their second iteration of their State of Customer Engagement Report, combining insight from the Twilio platform – which powers over one trillion human interactions annually – and global research of 2,500 enterprise decision makers.
The major trends in digital engagement for 2020 that are identified in the report include:
- soaring digital interaction between businesses and customers, and what this means for personalisation,
- the rise of the agile workforce,
- how highly regulated industries are leading in digital adoption,
- the next generation of video,
- and how businesses are choosing to build unique experiences.
“For nearly every organisation dealing with the impacts of the pandemic, increased digital engagement was a core part of their solutions. From remote learning, to work-from-home contact centre agents, to vaccine distribution logistics, digital communications have played a critical role. We expect that to accelerate through the pandemic recovery and become the new normal,” said Glenn Weinstein, Chief Customer Officer at Twilio.
Other key findings from the report include:
- Red tape didn’t stop play in APAC
86% of APAC companies across finance, government and healthcare report COVID-19 spurred their highly regulated organization to explore new strategies to serve customers. 78% of the same companies report it will be critically or very important to their success going forward.
- 2020 catapulted Singapore into a hybrid economy
93% of Singapore business leaders report that COVID-19 accelerated their move to the cloud, equipping companies with the flexibility to serve customers from anywhere. 95% plan to increase or maintain their current communications channel offerings after the pandemic and expect to add an average of four new channels this year.
- Digital engagement crucial to Singapore’s business survival
90% in Singapore report that increased customer engagement during the pandemic drove new customer insights. 82% report digital customer engagement will be critical to their business survival and success going forward.
- Companies that adopt custom communications solutions will survive
89% of enterprise decision makers in Singapore report they will choose to build communications solutions to meet customer demands in the future, rather than buy a pre-configured solution. 91% of C-level executives in Singapore found developers were crucial to solving business challenges brought on by COVID.
